What is the Holocaust?Why should we study it?

The word ‘Holocaust’ refers to ‘destruction or slaughter on a massive scale’. We usually use the

word in connection to the genocide and mass murder carried out by Nazi Germany during the

Second World War. Those targeted included Jews, , homosexuals, the disabled, and some religious

groups. Why do we study the Holocaust?

1. It helps us to appreciate democracy, choice and freedom in society – it is important that we do not

take these things for granted!2. It shows us the dangers of silence and indifference – if the rest of the world had acted when it observed the effects of Hitler’s rise to

power, perhaps the deaths of millions of people might have been avoided.

Anti-Semitism in Pre-WWII Europe

Dislike or hatred of Jews and Judaism is called ‘Anti-Semitism’. Jews were a minority in Europe, and

Jewish communities and traditions were often the target of suspicion and distrust because they

were ‘different’ – they were not Christians, like most Europeans. Some Jewish people wore

different kinds of clothes. They did not eat the same food, or follow the same cultural traditions

as other Europeans. Without discussing your thoughts aloud,

take a moment to think about groups of people today who are portrayed negatively

because they are ‘different’.

A cartoon created after World War One suggesting that the German army was ‘stabbed in the back’ by Europe’s Jews.

Students ask ‘why did Hitler hate the Jews so much?’

First of all, Hitler was an anti-Semite. Lots of people in Europe were. We need to remember that during this period, theories of racial superiority were regarded

as ‘fact’ by many, many people. In the United States, the black population were considered second

class citizens. In Australia, Aboriginal Australians were regarded as ‘fauna’ rather than people.

Hitler used anti-Semitism as a tool in his rise to power.

By blaming the Jews, he created a ‘scapegoat’ – a reason for Germany’s defeat in the First World War.

1933 to 1938

Following Hitler’s appointment as German chancellor on January 30,

1933, the Nazi state (also referred to as the Third Reich) quickly became a

regime in which citizens had no guaranteed basic rights.

Jews were forced to wear a yellow star so that they could not ‘pass’ as Germans.

A woman sits on a bench marked ‘Only for Jews’. Take two minutes to discuss with your neighbour the

following questions:1. Why is she concealing her face?

2. Who do you think might be taking the photo? Why did they choose to take this photo?

3. Do you have any other questions about this source?

What happened to the Jews at the beginning of World War Two?

After Hitler’s invasion of Poland in 1939 and the outbreak of the Second

World War, many Jews living in German-occupied areas were

rounded up and sent to live in in ghettos. The ghettos were enclosed areas of cities and towns where Jews

lived under miserable conditions.

Ghettoes established in German-occupied Europe from 1939 onwards

Waiting to be deported to the Lodz Ghetto

Street scene in the Lodz Ghetto

An excerpt from the Diary of David Sierakowiak, a teenager living in the Lodz

Ghetto

“The streets of Lodz feel eerie. Although richly decorated with Nazi flags, they are gray and sad. Dozens of regulations, public notices, and so on have been posted... A person has to wait in line for bread for five or six

hours, only to go away empty-handed 50 percent of the time. They

are still seizing people for forced labour. Nothing seems to go well.”

Sunday, September 24, 1940.

The Final Solution

The Final Solution was the name given to the plan, implemented after the Wannsee Conference of 1942, to exterminate the European Jews.

Two methods were used by the Nazis to carry out the destruction of Jews in Europe:

1. Mobile killing squads – the Einsatzgruppen.2. Extermination camps - Chelmno , Belzec,

Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek. All six extermination camps were in Poland.

Auschwitz-Birkenau, PolandA woman and children deemed unfit

for work, on their way to Gas Chamber 4.

Questions for discussion:

1.Who do you think took this photo? Why? How would the photographer feel?

2. Do you think that woman and the children knew they were being photographed?

Excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s Night

“The beloved objects that we had carried with us from place to place were left behind in the wagon and, with them, finally, our illusions.

Every few yards, there stood an SS man, his machine gun trained on us. Hand in hand we followed the throng.

An SS came towards us wielding a club. He commanded:

‘Men to the left! Women to the right!’Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without

emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother.”

The Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous Among the Nations is a term used to describe non-Jews who risked

their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the

Nazis. .